Morbidity and complexity involved in lymph node staging via surgical resection and biopsy could ideally be overcome using node assay techniques that are non-invasive. Visible blue dyes, fluorophores and radio-tracers are often used to locate the...

I consider the problem of extending certain invariants of subsets of natural numbers to their equivalents for subsets of larger cardinals. The two specific questions I will address are the extension of the off-branch number [Special characters...

Although ambivalence is not an everyday emotional state, it is quite prevelent during critical behavioral and life changes (e.g., smoking cessation). The goal of the present thesis was to understand the relationships between acute (Aim 1) and...

This work describes the effect of triaxial compressive confinement on the strength of columnar S2 ice loaded under conditions leading to brittle failure. Cubes of columnar S2 ice were tested at -10 °C under triaxial (proportional) loading where...

Fir waves are spatially and temporally repeating patterns of stand development and destruction in subalpine, balsam fir-dominated forests of the northeastern United States, perpetuated by downwind migration of strips of dying trees, "dieback...

Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) occurs when a sleeping infant experiences a challenge to cardiorespiratory homeostasis which it fails to overcome. Analyses of brain tissue from SIDS cases from around the world consistently show abnormalities in...

The chemistry of indole can be reversed and redirected by the addition of powerful electron-withdrawing groups. Incorporation of a nitro group at C-2 or C-3 renders the adjacent carbon susceptible to nucleophilic attack. Nitro, cyano, and...

AMPA receptors (AMPA-Rs) are glutamate-gated ion channels that mediate the majority of excitatory synaptic transmission in the brain. AMPA-Rs are generally found in vivo as hetero-tetramers made up of a combination of the GluR1-GluR4 subunits....

The manufacture of bulk parts from metastable powder materials requires new approaches to cold consolidation. One potential technique is equal-channel angular extrusion (ECAE), a simple shear process. This thesis describes an investigation into the...

Many organisms recognize and respond to categories: predator, prey, rival, or juvenile. Organisms recognize these ecologically-important categories by assessing diverse sensory stimuli. A primary focus of my research has been understanding how...

One of the most distinctive aspects of humans as a species is our propensity to form complex social networks made up of intense, non-reproductive bonds with non-kin. Navigating these networks presents a considerable cognitive challenge that is...

I tackle the problem of naming and sharing resources across administrative boundaries. Conventional systems manifest the hierarchy of typical administrative structure in the structure of their own mechanism. While natural for communication that...

The furanosteroids are a special class of natural products that feature a furan ring fused to the steroid nucleus at C-4 and C-6. In 1945, viridin, the parent member of this group, was isolated by Grove and coworkers from the fungas Gliocladium...

Given graded C *-algebras A and B , we define the notion of an admissible pair ([straight phi], D ) for A and B . Associated to an admissible pair ([straight phi], D ) is an equivalence class of asymptotic morphisms from A to B . Under certain...

We investigate weak and strong refocusing of light rays in a space-time and related concepts. A strongly causal space-time ( X^ n +1 , g ) is emphstrongly refocusing at x ∈ X if there is a point y ≠ x such that all null-geodesics through y pass...

AMPA receptors are glutamate-gated ion channels that mediate most of the excitatory synaptic signals in the central nervous system. They form tetrameric assemblies that are combinations of the subunits GluR1-4, each of which contains a...

Accurate chromosome segregation in human oocytes requires that meiotic sister chromatid cohesion remain intact for decades and work in model organisms indicates that deterioration of meiotic cohesion over time may be a major determinant of...

The purpose of this thesis is to describe methods for detecting hidden crevasses on glaciers in Polar regions. Crevasses form in ice sheets as a result of forces imposed upon the brittle ice. The crevasses are hidden from view by bridges of soft...

Cyclin-dependent kinases (CDKs) and their associated cyclins are key regulators of cell cycle progression. Caenorhabditis elegans has two predicted A- type cyclins, encoded by the genes cya-1 and cya-2. Cyclin A has been shown to be required for...